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Drupal 8 might be the last version of Drupal

Submitted by dryer
on Fri, 08/21/2015 - 18:32

We're well into 2015 and it seems that at the PHP 7 crew is holding on to their promise of releasing PHP on time this year. A few days back the PHP team tagged Release Candidate 1 for PHP 7 for release. This is a first sign of an actual release, since there is nothing stopping the PHP 7.0.0 RC1 being the release that actually ships. Probably it won't. but it's looking very good.

In the meanwhile Drupal 8 is release is inching towards a release, with only eleven critical issues at the time of writing. Drupal 8 is yet to reach the level of an RC, but given the investment Aquia and other companies bet big on it. The Drupal community must release a final version of Drupal 8 in 2015 or coinciding with a January launch of Drupal 7. Infact, Aquia already offers Drupal 8 on the Aqcuia Platform for testing.

So both PHP 7 and Drupal 8 are on track for a launch in 2015. But what I am already looking for is Drupal 9. This release will be more of an evolution rather than the revolution the Drupal community faced with Drupal 8. After the rather painful release effort over the years, I think everyone will want less backwards compatibility breaks and a shorter development lifecycle.

To be I'm not sure there will ever be a Drupal 9. With Facebook, Windows and other platforms inching towards a continuously evolving product in marketing terms. Sure, Facebook's tech stack with HHVM, React, Flux, etc. will have version numbers and releases. But only people who need to know about the versioning know about it. WordPress is already pretty much there. We need to follow.